The kitchen range industry has been aware of range tipping problems for decades. To date, methods used by nearly all range manufacturers to prevent range tips include: providing anti-tip or stability brackets to be installed at the rear legs of the range to attach the range to the floor or wall, providing installation instructions for installing the brackets, placing on-product warnings to the installer warning the installer with regard to the range tip hazard and the importance of installing the stability bracket, attaching on-product warnings for the end user regarding the hazard of range tipping and ways to avoid instability, and providing instructions in the owners' manual on how to avoid range tip situations. When installed, stability brackets are effective in preventing range tipping. However, to be effective, the brackets must be properly installed, but the proper installation of brackets, or the use of such brackets does not always occur.
In spite of the industry efforts, range manufacturers are still seeing a number of range tip incidents. Past cases have typically included small children opening and climbing on the range door. In such cases, ranges tip and children are very badly burned when hot water, grease or food cooking on the cooktop spills onto the children. The resulting injuries to these children can be quite severe. Claims against range manufacturers and the costs to defend against those claims can be substantial. Such claims have been based on the failure to provide ways to adequately prevent injuries from range instability incidents.
Engineers have testified to the difficulty of solving this problem beyond the methods used to date. They have indicated that the current state of the art provides the greatest reduction in the risk of range instability, and that other concepts are not currently feasible or are less effective in the range manufacturing environment. Such other concepts that have been suggested include: tethering the range at the rear, using microchip tip detection sensors, providing extension legs, moving range legs forward, providing counterweights, using break away hinges or lowering devices, providing interlock switches or door latches, or combinations of these features. Other concepts have been advanced as potentially viable but have been determined to be infeasible. A range manufacturer that develops an effective solution to range tipping can gain competitive advantage in the market place. As a result, there is value in developing a solution to preventing ranges from tipping and the injuries associated with tips.